Fadia, who had raised her eyebrow, smiled.
She herself was blessed with relatively large mammarial glands - not of the size of her big sis or of Princesses Dschamilla or Aurelia, but they were not small. This insecurity in a kid was almost adorable, though, she thought, as she wrapped a towel around herself.
"Fair enough.", she said and nodded, before leaning over and whispering to Erika: "I know a few tricks to make them larger, though."
With that, she motioned for her to follow her and left the changing room for the Hot Room.
The meat delivery simply followed Micky and Jax, the young apprentice carrying the cooler bags with ease. One could see, that he was not pumping up his muscles, but honestly training, as he delivered the meat delivery to the Mysteria shortly after the flag had been raised.
He smiled, handed everything over with little ceremony, collected a signature for their own documents and was off again. A few trimmings for the cat were in the bag as well, on the house.
Mayazal was another family-owned shop, this one filled to the brim with liquors and other alcoholic beverages of nearly all origins and ingredients, from Selkie-Whiskey to Kyrenaian Doggy Aragh, from Lillo-Beer to Ales and wines from Lutetii, to more exotic things like mango and pineapple spirits and even a few brands of date spirit.
A shelf with un-alcoholic beverages was present as well, with lemonades, water and other such things, accompanied by a smaller shelf with books about Kyrenaian spirits in Kyrenaian and English, basically tourist guides.
The staff was there in a number of four, three young women (one looking young enough to not be allowed to drink what she sold herself), and a guy at the register, who seemed jolly enough. The three girls were running around, adjusting the bottles in the shelves, filling up holes and doing all sorts of things, but were available for questions as well.
All in all, it was a good shop with a good selection and not too full either.
"Oh, there are ten Old Academies and it will be ten until the end of time itself.", Atif said, "It gets fun with the Young Academies, boarding schools like mine, which usually need to qualify before they can enter such contests... we do have a football league as well, though."
He let a beat pass.
"One question, though, when you say football, you mean the one with the round ball, eleven people plus three referee-blokes, and so on, right?", he added.
The other two teens nodded in agreement, their proposal being accepted.
The second teen stepped up and did as carefully as during his second throw... and nailed it!
Not directly in the centre, but still close enough to be considered for the full points - he grinned. "Well, that should make the competition interesting again!", he said.
The Merchant Navy had three major places in Sinope: One was the Merchant Navy Academy, which stood over the Small Basin, clearly visible for everyone and a good place to start. A better place to start, however, was the Merchant Navy Harbour Office, a relatively modest structure established in a sandstone building by the promenade. In times long past, it had been a warehouse.
The third place was a small yard, which serviced vessels of the Merchant Navy.
Entering brought one to an information desk, at which an office lady sat and worked on her computer... on a game of Kyrenaian Chess.
Aurelia grinned.
"Come, Marcella, we'll have to prep her anyway!", she said and took her hand, nodding to the older gentlemen in respect. "See ya, Peter!"
And with that, she went off, down the stairs and back onto dry shore - however, that did not last long as right opposite to the Aurelia, the familiar cat yawl was moored, together with a stout and firm guard.
Aldhiyb yapped as the two came towards him and the Harira in all her gigantic and majestic glory of six metres.
Aurelia kissed her Sand Wolf onto his head, then grinned at Marcella. "Come aboard!", she asked of her.
Marcella knew the Harira already, but Aurelia could not help but feel excited again, just like on that day in the UIS.
Atif smiled sadly.
"Thank you for the compliment, but...", he began and swallowed, blushing lightly, "...a perfect gentleman would be more professional then I am at the moment, Asuna."
What could he do? He was a young man massaging an attractive woman!
The eight men would be surprised to find a young woman at the foot of the gangplank leading onto the quay, dressed in a black-red sailor suit. She had golden eyes and blonde hair, a red tassel in her hair.
"Emperor Peter Blachkov and company?", she asked in a professional tone, "Able Sailor Rasha Quadir, Aide-de-Camp to Crown-Prince Ilia, Lord-Commander of the Navy. The same, who invites you on a cuppa tea aboard the Sayarfur, if it pleases their majesties and excellencies."
The last was accompanied by a small bow.
Ilia smiled at Yuzu.
"I would offer you a spot on the Sayarfur, but sadly, we will be leading, so I can't imagine, that we'll have a good view...", he admitted, before he had an idea, "If you want, I could use my excellent connections to my brother to maybe get you onto the Aurelia?" He grinned. "He loves to have pretty young women on his ship, too, so I doubt, that he would refuse the request of his dearest older brother."
After a moment, he added: "Either her or on a replica of the World's First Aircraft Carrier."
Mahmut smiled at Haru.
"Sure, I would love to.", he said and raised a hand, "But under one condition: Please call me Mahmut as well." He leaned slightly forward. "If you are not a ship-otaku, what would you like to see? I might not be as well-acquainted with Sinope the with for example Utica, but I know my way around!"
Shirin smiled at Yuki, thinking for a moment or two...
"Say, you're staying for a while, right?", she asked and leaned forward slightly - would Yuki have been a boy, there would have been an excellent view - as she was a girl, Shirin figured, the view was still excellent, but in a different way. A sort of preview. "Would you be interested in getting a few lessons in being a Kyrenaian Handmaiden?"
